BobHe always had a great Strat-O-Matic card with the Pirates, mainly against LHP. I thought when he came to the Mets they were getting a potential all-star. WRONG!

Paul Sullivan
January 7, 2001Clines was a poor man's John Milner. A VERY poor man.

Jersey Joe
August 16, 2001Are you sure that he wasn't Frank Tavares ?? I always thought that they were the same guy when in Pittsburgh.

Charles
February 22, 2002I remember that, as a Pittsburgh Pirate, he used to KILL the Mets. When the Mets acquired him, I thought, "Good strategy!!!"

Then he comes over here and hits .227.

So much for stocking the team with guys that "kill you."

Larry Burns
June 10, 2002Another complete dump job. When he was intially traded by the Pirates for Duffy Dyer, everyone wanted to know what the Pirates were smoking. He was a good major league outfielder. Then he gets to Shea and plays half a season and blows. He could not do anything well. It was a one season experiment gone bad. How come teams can completely outsmart the Mets on trades like these?

Joe Figliola
March 11, 2003Topps rush-released a Gene Clines Mets baseball card in 1975 that featured the line, "His 14 stolen bases last year topped any NY Met." I think Topps put the hex on poor Gene; the gangly Dave Kingman wound up leading the team in thefts that year.

Kiwiwriter
September 8, 2004Another one of those guys of whom you say, "Oh, he played for the Mets once?"

Good with the Pirates, fell down with the Mets, like Larry Bowa.

Eddie
February 28, 2005Clines was part of the incredible Pirate gangbuster hitting machine; as a Met he became infected with the Mets anemic offense syndrome.

Ken
March 13, 2005What I remember most of Clines, is that his Baseball Card showed up in every pack I bought in 1975!!!

Buzz
March 18, 2005In 1975 I traded 2 Yankee cards to my best friend (he was a big Yankee fan) for Joe Torre and Gene Clines. This major trasaction took place in the auditorium of P.S. 222 in Brooklyn. I remember thinking Clines was great because of all the years he hit .300 (for he Pirates) on the back of his card. I mean even his lifetime average was over .300! I hated to see Duffy Dyer go but I thought we were getting the next NL batting leader. Little did I know....

Mook
December 6, 2006Gene was somewhat symbolic of how the Mets and Yankees were heading in different directions during the mid 70's. The day the Mets got Clines, I remember seeing a copy of the Post on my way home from school. (Remember when it was an afternoon paper?) I made a point of pointing the headline out to my friend, praisng the trade for Duffy Dyer. I was sure Cline would hit .300 and steal 40 bases as he had been a good outfielder for the hated Pirates. My friend, a Yankee fan, just nodded and pointed to the huge Booming headline dwarfing the Clines Story "YANKS GET BONDS FOR MURCER!!!" (For those too young to remember Bobby Bonds was Barry's father and in the early-mid seventies one of the best players and biggest names in the game.)

And so it began...

santos
April 20, 2008What I remember about Mr. Clines is when the season was all but over he started to hit. Go figure.

VIBaseball
October 15, 2010I'm digging the '70s whiskers Gene is sporting in his Mets photo. I had not realized he spent quite a few years as a big-league coach from 1988-2002.